Ten literary quotes we all get wrong

There’s nothing elementary about it, my dear Watson. And does a rose by any
other name really smell as sweet?

The ten literary quotations below have passed into common parlance because they encapsulate human truths or sum up much-loved characters. The only problem is, in most cases, nobody actually wrote them...

1. Elementary, my dear Watson

There are plenty of ‘elementaries’ and a few ‘my dear Watsons’ across Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes oeuvre, but the phrase ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’ never appears.

The line from William Congreve’s 1697 poem The Mourning Bride is: Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

It’s a shame to lose the first half of the couplet in the misquotation, but the addition of ‘hath’ lends a charming Olde Worlde feel.

3. I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

This one is always attributed to Voltaire, but actually came from a 20th-century biography of him by the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall.

The author was summarising the philosopher’s attitude, but the first person pronoun led many to take it for a direct quote.

4. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble

The witches at the opening of Macbeth say “Double, double, toil and trouble”.

It’s surprising anyone still gets this wrong, considering the correct line was cemented in the cultural imagination by the 1993 Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen TV movie which took the quotation as its title.

It’s a small error compared to the title of the Alanis Morrisette song inspired by the play: “Doth [sic] I Protest Too Much”.

6. A rose by any other name smells just as sweet

The last of our trio of Shakespearean entries, the above is now commonly used but was never said in so many words by Juliet (in Romeo and Juliet).

The actual quote is, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.

7. Please, Sir, can I have some more?

In Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, the orphan rises from the table, advances towards the master and says: "Please, sir, I want some more." The same line that is used in the 1968 musical film Oliver!, so the misquote remains unattributed.

8. Theirs but to do or die

Lord Tennyson’s poem Charge of the Light Brigade reads, Theirs not to make reply/Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die, but the line is often misquoted by people thinking of a ‘do or die’ mentality.

9. Shaken, not stirred

Ian Fleming’s James Bond asks a barman in Dr No for "A medium Vodka dry Martini – with a slice of lemon peel. Shaken and not stirred”. A single word out, then - but the line “shaken, not stirred” has now been used so often in the Bond films that it's become ingrained in our image of Bond.

10. Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink

In Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the sailor describes his time stranded at sea: Water, water, everywhere/And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

The line is regularly misquoted in popular culture, but nowhere quite as spectacularly as by Homer Simpson who, finding himself stranded on a dinghy in the open sea in one episode, exclaims: “Water, water everywhere so let’s all have a drink!”